Venting out those feelings
by ameyab97
Summary: Just something that popped in my mind while I was reading Volume 15 of the Light Novel. As such, characters might be a bit OOC. Oneshot


"Oh? Rika?"

The brunette paused midway through the action of closing the public corridor door and turned towards the source of the voice. "Maou-san?"

"Are you here for Emi?" asked Maou as he pushed his beloved bicycle, Dullahan, along the path to his home, the apartment, Villa Rosa Sasazuka.

Rika didn't immediately answer. Maou didn't notice the slight pause either as he parked his bicycle beside the wall. After a bit of silence, Rika finally answered. "I actually had a question for you."

"For me?" asked Maou in surprise. What question could the brunette, Emi's best friend on earth and one of the only two people who knew about their identities, have that she would have to ask him?

Rika nodded and closed the door of the public corridor of the apartment. Then she climbed down a few steps and sat down, waiting for Maou to finish parking his bicycle.

Maou noticed that. "You look like you have a lot of questions to ask," he commented.

"Mm-hm." Rika nodded once. "You can think about it like that."

Maou sighed to himself. "I hope it won't take too long. Emi needs to come back soon since her shift is tomorrow."

"It won't take too long if you answer me quickly," said Rika matter-of-factly with a composed expression on her face. "Suzuno warned me you might try to avoid my questions."

"Whatever does she mean?" asked Maou, sighing again. He walked over to the staircase and sat at the bottommost stair, a couple of steps below Rika. He then bent over and exhaled quietly, waiting for Rika to speak up.

Rika inhaled deeply and slowly breathed out. She then asked the first question she wanted to. "Why did you conquer Ente Isla?"

The question was so unexpected for Maou that he turned back sharply to stare at her in shock. While he knew that Rika knew most of their history, he had not expected her to close in with this question. He had already answered that question once when Suzuno had asked him back in Ente Isla when they were on a mission to rescue Ashiya and Emi. Even back then, he had been reluctant to answer it but because Suzuno had said that she won't let anyone know about what he would tell her, he had ended up confessing about the reason – which he knew and felt was stupid – why he wanted to conquer and not kill.

Hearing the question again from an unexpected source like Rika was nothing less than a shock for him.

"How much did Suzuno tell you?" He asked hesitantly, after a few seconds' pause.

"Nothing," replied Rika promptly. "Suzuno said she didn't want to betray your trust by saying things that you had specifically told her not to say. She also mentioned that it wouldn't reflect well on her considering her position in Ente Isla."

Knowing what Suzuno had been referring to, Maou sighed in relief. Then he gave Rika a stern glance. "Why do you want to know?"

"Remember what you told me back when Chiho-chan brought me to Ente Isla for the first time?" asked Rika without faltering. It was almost as if she had expected Maou to reply like this.

Maou wracked his brain for quite some time but could not point out what Rika was referring to. After a while of meaningless internal struggle, he shook his head with a sigh and glanced up again to look at the brunette. Rika recited what she was thinking about –

"History is something which should be passed down by observers like you who maintain a certain distance from the core of the events."

Maou seemed to have a faint recollection of the statement so he nodded once. "What about it?"

"Well, I want to be that observer now," replied Rika at once.

Maou snorted. "Just because I said that does not mean you have to do that. I never meant to force you to do that."

"You're not forcing me to," corrected Rika. "Like I said, I _want_ to do this."

She paused, letting the words hang in the atmosphere as if waiting for Maou to let them sink in. Maou gave another sigh. "Not again. Why is it like this every time?"

"What do you mean?" asked Rika, genuinely confused. She hadn't expected the demon king to sound so miserable just because of one question.

There was a long silent pause.

"Making me recount my failures – it stresses me out mentally to no end," replied Maou finally. He turned to look at Rika with a glum look on his face. "How would you feel if you were asked, again and again, to narrate your failure of achieving something to others?"

Rika made no comment. She silently observed Maou who seemed to be muttering something under his breath. After a while, he gave another sigh.

"Alright, I will tell you," he said. Before Rika could say anything else, he turned to her and glared. "But you are _absolutely_ not going to tell anyone what I say here right now when I answer your questions. I am going to answer all of your questions just because you are a third party observer here; no more and no less."

Rika seemed to have been taken aback and had a slightly uncomfortable look on her face. She fidgeted a bit and then nodded. "You have my word. I won't tell anyone anything."

Maou gave her a long, contemplating glance and then looked away. He then started recounting everything he had told Suzuno back in Ente Isla, word for word. He didn't leave out anything, including the part where he had said that this should not reach Emi's ears.

Rika calmly listened to everything. While she knew from Ashiya that they had almost conquered Ente Isla until Emi had stepped in, she didn't know the reason behind it. As such, she was curious and therefore, sought out Maou to ask him.

"There you have it," said Maou when he finished. He gave a harsh chuckle, "My failures – for you to laugh at."

Rika shook her head. "You… had your reasons," she finally said. "I can't blame you for what you did."

"But I have to take responsibility for that," interrupted Maou. "I am the king who those demons followed; if I don't take responsibility for making them walk on the path to death, who will?"

"That's… not what I was coming to," said Rika, a bit taken aback at being cut off so suddenly.

Maou looked up at her when she said that. He had an uncertain look on his face as if wondering if she had some other motive under those words.

Rika continued with the next question that naturally popped in her mind. "Why do you not want Emi to know about this?"

Maou sighed yet again for the umpteenth time that evening. "Why huh?" He paused as if trying to find the right words to articulate a response. "Let's just say I prefer her abusing me and calling me a tyrant and a murderer. Because if she doesn't, I will lose my own pace."

'Are you masochistic?' – Rika almost verbalized that thought but caught herself in time. This wasn't the right time to have such thoughts. She chuckled at herself for thinking like that. She then glanced briefly at Maou as she hesitantly asked her question. "But hasn't Emi stopped antagonizing you since… you know… since you two hugged that one night?"

Maou was so taken aback at the question that he turned back to stare at Rika too suddenly and lost his balance, falling down the couple of steps. His eyes showed unimaginable terror as if he had gun pointed at his head while he was standing at the edge of a cliff where one step back could mean his death. "Where did you hear that?" He shouted frantically. "Who told you that? I was pretty sure everyone was sleeping when that happened!"

Rika could only stare in amazement at Maou's extraordinary reaction. She knew that he would be surprised, even stupefied, but this reaction had exceeded her expectation. She almost felt compelled to apologize and leave. As it was, because of her curiosity, she just sat there, tense as she waited for Maou to stop shouting.

"Emi… told me," she replied finally when Maou stopped and waited for her response with a horrified expression as he clasped his head, distressed. Maou cursed her under his breath. Seeing that he would start shouting again, Rika continued hastily as she regained her composure. "Don't worry; no one else knows. I badgered Emi until she told me why she had suddenly stopped antagonizing you."

Maou looked up and gave her a calculating glance. "How do I know you are telling me the truth?" He finally asked her. Rika looked uncharacteristically offended. Seeing her expression, Maou added hastily, "What I mean is how you can be sure no one else knows."

Rika gave a sigh, trying to relive the tension in her body. "I was the only one there when Emi finally confessed that," she replied blankly. "She too explicitly told me to not let anyone know about this."

Maou sat himself down on the step from where he had fallen. Neither of them said a word for a while. Then, Maou spoke.

"I… don't understand her."

"Huh?" Rika glanced at the cheerless demon king. Maou had spoken in a small voice so she hadn't exactly been able to hear what he had said.

"I don't understand Emi," said Maou finally in a louder voice. Rika didn't say a word but she felt a bit surprised when Maou said that. After all, Maou was the one who could figure out what Emi was thinking most accurately – even more so, ever since Alas Ramus, the Yesod fragment, had come into the picture.

"I don't understand Emi at all," repeated Maou as he turned a bit and sat with is back to the side of the staircase. He gave Rika a despondent look. "I might understand how Emilia, the hero, thinks, but I do not understand Yusa Emi at all."

"What do you mean?" asked Rika finally, unable to understand the man's thought process. "You are the one who understands how her mind works the most."

Maou suddenly turned towards Rika. "How would you feel if someone who you hate and who hates you just as much suddenly wants to close the distance between them and you?"

Rika seemed startled at the sudden question but she answered almost immediately. "I would be suspicious," she replied honestly. "I wouldn't know what to think and would keep on wondering if there's some other hidden motive behind their actions."

"That's exactly how I feel right now about Emi," said Maou with a long sigh when she answered. He clasped his head in his hands again. "I have absolutely no idea how to act around her at this point. She keeps on giving me mixed signals – sometimes she treats me respectfully, sometimes she looks at me like I am a poisonous scorpion and everyone should stay away from me. I can't handle that kind of bipolarity; it's draining me emotionally."

"But hasn't she stopped looking at you like you were a disgusting person?" Rika couldn't help but ask. "She hasn't treated you badly ever since that night."

"That affects me even more!" shouted Maou desperately. "I feel even more suspicious and can't calm myself down at all even if I don't show it in front of others."

Rika looked at him sympathetically. While she hadn't had any enemy that she would hate with all her heart, she could still understand the hate relationship Emi and Maou had before they drifted to Japan. No wonder Maou felt so uncomfortable.

"Sometimes I wish Emi would revert back to how she was when she used to call herself a hero," added Maou in a small voice, taking Rika by surprise.

"You know…" started Rika and paused, waiting for Maou to glance at her. When Maou turned, she continued, "Maybe it's time you should stop calling yourself the Demon King and Emi, the hero."

"What are you…?" Maou started saying but was interrupted when Rika shook her head while looking at him.

"Has sticking to your roles of 'Demon King' and 'Hero' done any good so far?" asked Rika, looking at Maou in the eye.

"Uhhh…" Maou couldn't answer. He had a déjà vu feeling as if he had already faced a similar question earlier but he couldn't remember it.

"From what Suzuno told me, you are not willing to fight on a stage prepared for you, right?" asked Rika, her gaze becoming harder as she continued making Maou flinch. "If you're not willing to fight on a prepared stage, why do you want to fulfill the roles specifically prepared for that stage?"

It looked like those words had stabbed Maou in the heart. All he could do was stare at Rika in consternation while she looked at him sternly.

"The roles of 'Demon King' and 'Hero'," continued Rika, her voice softening a bit, "weren't these roles given to you by Lailah – the same person whose request you are not willing to accept at any cost?"

Maou didn't say anything; he couldn't. Because he knew Rika was right. Ever since rescuing Emi from the clutches of the church in Ente Isla, he had known that the hatred between him and Emi had been reducing rather quickly. While he didn't feel anything towards Emi particularly, Emi had hated him until she started questioning his motives when he saved everyone from Lucifer – or Urushihara as he called himself here. It was also the time when Chiho found out about their identities.

And now, the same Emi was proactively trying to close the distance between them. Unlike with Suzuno in Ente Isla when he had told her the reason why he wanted to conquer and not kill, he couldn't get himself to close the distance between him and Emi even though he didn't hate her. It just felt unnatural to him.

"How long are you going to contemplate?"

Rika's impatient question broke through Maou's thoughts. He glanced up at her with an even more distressed expression and let out another sigh. He looked so uncharacteristically tired that Rika felt a pang of guilt. "I think you should rest for a while," she said finally, deciding to keep her remaining questions for later.

"Yeah, like that's going to happen," scoffed Maou, making Rika stare at him. "Like anyone would let me rest that easily while we prepare to fight God."

"Uhhh…" Rika didn't know what to say and just stared at him blankly. "It can't be helped," she said after some time when Maou didn't say anything. "Everyone here depends on you right now. Including Emi," she softly added.

"Don't I know it?!" Maou suddenly burst out, punching the step he had his arm resting on. The unexpected action made Rika jump and she scooted a bit further away from Maou towards the other side of the narrow staircase nervously. "Right now, I feel so fed up of everyone depending on me. It's like if I died, they wouldn't be able to go on with their lives!"

Rika couldn't help but keep an eye on him nervously. She didn't know what she had said that could have made him burst out so suddenly. "It wouldn't be farfetched to say that…" she said slowly when what Maou had yelled sank in her mind.

"What do you mean?" asked Maou at once skeptically, hearing her statement.

Rika seemed to regret saying it out loud. She shook her head and rephrased her statement differently. "It wouldn't be farfetched to say that Chiho would certainly find it very hard to go on with her life. She even ended up bringing me to Ente Isla because she didn't know how long it would take you guys to defeat God."

Maou slumped back, depressed, after hearing her statement. Neither of them spoke a word, making the silence more and more awkward as time went on. Just as Rika thought that she should leave to avoid the awkwardness, Maou spoke up.

"Hey Rika, do you know why I spared Chiho's memories?"

Rika froze in her act of getting up. She stared at Maou uncertainly as if trying to make sense of what he had just said. Not only that, Maou also always called Chiho as 'Chi-chan' so hearing him call her with her name felt strange. It seemed like Maou really wanted to talk about Chiho seriously.

She had heard that Chiho had confessed to Maou and was waiting for an answer but Maou had been keeping her hanging without any direct answer – quite unlike Ashiya who outright rejected her; Rika's expression darkened at the memory but she shook her head to try and forget about it temporarily. Right now, hearing what Maou had to say was a priority.

"No, I don't," she replied, sending Maou a curiosity-filled look.

"Because back then too, I was stressed out," said Maou with a long sigh. Rika didn't say a word, waiting for him to continue. He did after a short pause. "Being in a foreign world, with the person you know depending on you to communicate and make sure that you don't get arrested, trying to survive by finding a job and not being able to vent out your frustrations because no one else other than you and your companion would understand your predicament – do you know how badly it can affect a person mentally?"

Maou didn't look at Rika; he didn't expect an answer from her. He gave yet another sigh and glanced down at his hands. "I couldn't vent out my frustrations to Ashiya or Emi since neither of them would be neutral parties. Chiho was the first person from this world who found out our identities and still chose to laugh at us outright; can you think about it – a human laughing at the demon king in his face?" He chuckled to himself as he recalled the incident.

Rika gave him an odd glance but didn't interrupt him. It seemed like Maou was subconsciously letting his bottled feelings out to her right now so she intended to hear them all out.

"That was when I thought that this person could be the one I could depend on," continued Maou, glancing back at Rika. "I think that night Emi already explained everything to Chiho because the next day at break, she asked if that form was really my actual form or not. I ended up explaining quite a lot of things from my side; it lifted a lot of pressure from me." He gave another sigh. "When I was done, I asked her if she wanted me to wipe her memories because I thought they were too terrible for a normal human of this world – who had nothing to do with Ente Isla – to remember. She snapped at me and I couldn't even look her in the eye for the rest of the day."

"I-I see," said Rika finally, understanding why Maou had spared Chiho's memories.

"But," started Maou, still having not finished speaking. "I did not expect her to confess that she loved me."

Rika was taken aback at the directness. She knew that Maou was dense but she did not expect him to outright say that.

"That's where the problem started and the stress began building up again," said Maou with a snort. "I couldn't involve a human from another world in Ente Isla's conflict. Chiho's confession and later her being kidnapped by Sariel meant that she wasn't a third party anymore; she became a human actively involved with these otherworldly conflicts. Not being able to have someone to vent out to again, it has been burning me out a lot – especially since the night of Emi's malfunction."

Maou got up and started pacing back and forth in front of the staircase as the sun set behind the concrete buildings of the city. "And not being able to reply to Chiho's confession is also the part of the stress. She might have wanted to get it off her chest but she unknowingly has put me in a state of constant anxiety. I can't tell her I don't see her as a woman I'd want to spend my life with!"

'So he had decided already after all,' thought Rika, feeling more and more sympathetic as Maou let more and more out. She decided to question his decision out loud. "Why can't you?"

"Because Chiho's like a goddess for every one of us," admitted Maou forcefully with a wretched expression on his face. "Everyone likes her. My rejecting her is, without a doubt, going to hurt her a lot; hell, maybe she will run away from her home. Can I risk that? Can I risk making an enemy out of all the people close to me just because I rejected a woman who confessed to me? Unlike Ashiya who could easily reject you if he wanted to, I can't do the same to Chiho. Every one of the people who know my actual identity will be after my life – especially Emi."

"That's… not really true…"

"Can you guarantee that?" interrupted Maou with a fierce glare in her direction. "Can you guarantee that these friends of mine won't leave me alone because I hurt Chiho? I will be left alone, you know. Ashiya and maybe Alas Ramus at most will stick by me, but what about everyone else? What are the chances that they won't just curse at me, and use their powers to make my life miserable by making me relive that moment over and over again?"

"Wait a second, you don't mean to say…" said Rika, understanding what Maou was saying, "Are you afraid of being lonely?"

"Have you ever been left alone to fend for yourself for decades on end?" snapped Maou, finally taking his place at one of the bottom stairs and breaking down.

"…well… I can't really…"

"…answer that, can you?" Maou finished her sentence for her. "Well, that's what I went through when Lailah left me with that Yesod fragment, all the time till I came across Camio! Those decades of fending for myself, trying to survive in the harsh environment of the demon world where death could be waiting for you just around the corner, have been the loneliest decades of my life. That's why I don't want to risk my current relations with everyone by answering Chiho's confession. Even if it's just Emi passing by my home to curse at me, I am happy because I know that she at least remembers me and I won't be left alone like an invisible pebble on the road."

Rika let go of the breath she hadn't known she had been holding when Maou finally stopped. "I see," she said softly. "You have been bottling up a lot ever since Chiho confessed, haven't you?"

Maou nodded wordlessly. He then chuckled harshly. "Just look at me; I just said I didn't want to involve humans form this world and now here I am venting out to another human who unknowingly got pulled in to the conflicts surrounding Ente Isla."

"I don't really mind it," said Rika, having had enough time to let everything she had suddenly found out sink in. "After all," she added very softly to herself, "I met a certain kind and likeable person."

"What was that?" asked Maou, unable to hear what she had said.

Rika shook her head with a small but sad smile. "Nothing really. I just thought I had held you back long enough."

"Ah yes," said Maou as if it had just occurred to him. He got up and gave another sigh, and then turned to Rika. "Please don't tell anyone about this," he said, clapping his hands together and bowing to her. The action took her by surprise but she didn't let it show on her face.

"Don't worry; I won't," said Rika with a nod. She felt a little uncomfortable for some unknown reason. Maou picked up on her discomfort but didn't say anything.

He climbed the remaining stairs past her and stopped in front of the door at the top. "And thank you very much," he said, glancing at her briefly with a grateful expression. "I feel a lot better now."

Rika nodded with a smile and followed him as he entered his home. He opened the gate and with a small wave, left for Ente Isla. Once the gate closed, Rika walked out of the apartment, closed and locked its door, and stood outside the public corridor at the top of the stairs, leaning over the railings to glance down below.

Just as she leaned over, a redhead woman appeared under her. Rika couldn't see her expression at all but she spoke to her anyway.

"You heard all that, didn't you, Emi?"


End file.
